It is always a source of satisfaction to one, in examining opinions from which he is compelled to differ, to feel that the presentation of them which he is considering is the best which could be made under the circumstances. With pleasure, therefore, we recognize the manifest tokens of research and erudition on the part of the author of the views presented in the columns of the Statesman, in the communication entitled, “Argument for the first-day Sabbath from the gift of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.” We do not flatter ourselves, however, that all which has been said in that article was for our benefit. It is not a little remarkable that three-fourths of its contents are devoted to the settlement of a point, which—while indeed it affects the question at issue—is not one upon which we bestowed many words, having preferred to consider, for the sake of argument, that the Pentecost did, on the year of our Lord’s crucifixion, fall upon the first day of the week; and then, having done this, to prove that this coincidence in no way affected, necessarily, the nature of that day.

Nevertheless, we must beg leave here to express our gratitude that, notwithstanding the concession in question, the readers of the Statesman are at last instructed by an abler pen than our own in reference to the diversity of opinion which exists among the learned as to whether, indeed, it is safe to conclude that the Sunday, to the exclusion of the Sabbath, was the day upon which the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles. Be it remembered, also, that the learned men who stand as the advocates of the seventh day as the one which God thus honored were not observers of that day as the Sabbath. All the authorities quoted are men who, if they regarded any Sabbath at all, gave their preference to the first, and not to the last, day of the week. This being the case, they certainly cannot be charged with any bias in favor of the creation Sabbath. Not only so, but all their predilections were doubtless against that day, and favorable to its rival. Hence we see that when, under these circumstances, it is admitted that such distinguished men as Lightfoot, Weiseler, and Hitzig, have agreed that the last day of the week was the one on which the Pentecost occurred at the time in question, they did so—not in the interest of preconceived notions, nor for the purpose of bolstering up a theory which was in desperate need of help—but because there was, to their minds, at least, much which compelled a conclusion they would gladly have avoided.

Right here, also, in order to widen the breach in the wall of evidence, we beg leave to act in harmony with the plan pursued by the writer, and to present a note from the pen of one no less distinguished than Professor Hackett, which will make it manifest beyond dispute that the scholars who at the present time sympathize with those cited above, who regard the seventh day of the week and not the first as having been the day of the Pentecost, are both numerous and celebrated: “It is generally supposed that this Pentecost, signalized by the outpouring of the Spirit, fell on the Jewish Sabbath, our Saturday.” Quoted in “Hist. of Sab.,” by J. N. A., page 150. Let the reader bear in mind that we are not assuming to decide between these long lines of doctors who differ so widely upon a very important point, as regarded by some; but that our purpose is simply to call attention to the fact of this discrepancy, and to show its bearing upon the subject under discussion.

The first query which should be propounded, therefore, is this: Has God ever declared that the day of the Pentecost, which we are trying to locate, was identical with the first day of the week? The answer is in the negative. There is not one word in the text (Acts 2:1, 2), or in the Testament, in regard to the day of the week on which these events occurred. It is simply stated that they took place “when the day of Pentecost was fully come,” How remarkable, if the object was not to honor a feast which occurred annually, but especially for the purpose of distinguishing the first day of the week! Before, however, that day could be illustrated by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon it, it must first he decided—and that, too, from Bible evidence—that such outpouring did occur on the day specified. Can this be done? We appeal for a response to the average Christian men and women of this time. Tell me, after having read the three-column argument of the gentleman, has not the effect of what he has said been to unsettle, rather than to establish, your convictions upon the point before our minds? If never before, is it not now true that you feel somewhat shaken in regard to the identity of the Sunday with the Pentecost, on the year of the crucifixion? In view of what has been written, would you undertake to establish your faith from any deduction which you yourself could make from plain Scripture declarations? Is it not true that your opinion in the promises depends entirely upon the faith of the one or the other class of scholars who have ranged themselves on both sides of this subject? Has the religion of Jesus Christ then changed? Is it no longer true that its great and important practical truths are withheld “from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes”? Has God left the important question of first-day sanctity, not upon the solid basis of explicit command, but upon the doubtful inference which is to be derived from certain transactions which occurred on a certain day, and then left the day of their occurrence to occupy a position in the week so doubtful that the most learned of those who had a desire to keep it should be honestly divided in opinion as to which day it was? We believe not. To our mind, it is simple presumption to intimate that God—who is not willing that any should perish, and who has said that he will do nothing but he will reveal it to his servants the prophets—should deal with his creatures in a manner at once so indirect and so obscure.

Having seen that there is a wide divergence of views among the very men who are the observers of the modern Sunday, in regard to its claims to distinction on the score of its having been first honored by the outpouring of the Spirit on the fiftieth day after the resurrection, let us look for a moment at the situation with reference to the possible effect upon the seventh day, of the logic employed. Taking it for granted that our friends would not fly from their favorite deduction provided it should prove to be true that they are mistaken in regard to the time of the Pentecost, let us concede, for the time being, that the long line of celebrities, headed by such men as Lightfoot, Weiseler, and Hitzig, were right in arguing that Saturday, and not Sunday, was the day on which the great Jewish festival occurred; then, beyond all dispute, it must be conceded by our opponents that this was but another effort on the part of Jehovah to illustrate, for the benefit of succeeding generations, the day which he had previously made memorable by his resting, his blessing, and his sanctification. In other words, with this view of the design of the outpouring of the Spirit, the effect upon the ancient Sabbath would be the same as it is now claimed to have been upon the first day of the week. The point, therefore, of the identity of the days is to them a vital one. If they are wrong in this, they are wrong in all. We appeal to them, therefore, in view of the infinite consequences which hang upon the proper celebration of the right Sabbath, to at least make their logic so plain that it will be accepted by men of their own faith, before they speak of its strength with great assumption of confidence. Before any person has a right to employ the events which transpired at the time of the Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit in the interest of Sunday sanctity, he must be able to solve, at least to the satisfaction of his own mind, all the difficulties which complicate this question. As God has never seen fit to say that the Jewish feast, at the time under consideration, transpired on the first day of the week, he must be able to establish that proposition independently of an explicit thus saith the Lord.

There are two ways by which this may be attempted. (1.) By proving that the Pentecost always took place on the first day of the week; or, (2.) By demonstrating that Christ was crucified on Friday, the fourteenth day of Nisan, and that consequently the Pentecost must have fallen upon a Sunday following, and separated from that day by about fifty days. But, so far as the first proposition is concerned, which would be by far the easier of demonstration, if it were true—should the reader be inclined to favor it—he must convince himself that he could establish it against the conviction and the learning of the writer in question; for he rejects it as being untenable. Should he therefore turn to the second, then, as remarked above, he must be able to prove, not merely that Christ died on the fourteenth day of the Jewish month Nisan, but that likewise that fourteenth day of the month was also the sixth day of the week. When we say that this will be a task which few minds are capable of performing, and from which those who are best informed will the most readily turn away, We but assert what the writer in question has very distinctly shadowed forth in the facile manner in which he disposes of the obscurity of the statements in the three Synoptical Gospels by arbitrarily deciding that they must be interpreted by that of John.

What the real object of the writer was in making the statement that the Karaites and the Sadducees hold to the first theory stated above, we are at a loss to decide, since he himself concludes that they were wrong in their hypothesis. But let us suppose for a moment that they were right, and that the Pentecost always followed the weekly Sabbath; would that prove that it occurred on Sunday? We answer, Yes. But would it prove that Sunday was therefore holy time? We answer, No; it would not so much as touch this independent question. Or rather, it should be said, if it affected it at all, it would increase the strength of the seventh-day Sabbath argument. Do you ask, How? We answer that, according to their theory, you must first have a weekly Sabbath before you could decide when you had reached the Pentecost Sunday. The direction in Leviticus was, that they should count to themselves seven Sabbaths from the day that they brought the sheaf of the wave-offering, which would bring them to the feast in question.

Now let it be supposed that the crucifixion answered to the ancient Passover, and that the apostles proceeded to the determination of the time when the Pentecost would be reached, according to the theory of the Karaites. The first thing which would have been necessary was, the weekly Sabbath, which immediately followed the crucifixion of Christ. Having found it, they would have numbered seven Sabbaths, and have decided that the day immediately following the last of these answered to the feast. But unfortunately for them they would have discovered—had they believed in the modern doctrine that the law of the Sabbath was nailed to the cross, Col. 2:16(?)—that they were deprived of a starting point; for the Sabbath institution is a thing of commandment. Take away the commandment, and the institution is gone. Therefore, as the cross had accomplished its work, and had been taken down on Friday, God had removed the landmark from which they were commanded to measure the time which should bring them to the Pentecost at the very period when they needed it most. In reality, there was left them no Sabbath which answered to the one in Leviticus.

Should it be replied, however, that the Sabbath, though gone in fact, existed nevertheless in name, it might be responded that this would indeed be an anomalous condition of things. Mark it: it is not the incidental mention, by its proper name, of an institution which had ceased to be, which we are considering; but it is the deliberate action of that God who knows the end from the beginning, in compelling the disciples to treat the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath, in order to the decision of an important fact; for eight weeks after, as is claimed, it had lost its Sabbatic character.

Again; should it be urged, as a means of escape from the embarrassments of the situation, that God did not actually require them to count the seventh day as the Sabbath, since there was really no day of Pentecost which they were obliged to keep on the year of our Lord’s crucifixion, we answer, Very good. Then, of course, we shall hear nothing hereafter from the argument for Sunday sanctity which is based upon the hypothesis that the day of Pentecost fell on the first day of the week in the year in question, since it will have been admitted that there was no Pentecost that year, and consequently that it could not properly be said to have fallen upon any day.

Once more; should it be insisted that though the Pentecostal feast was not binding in the year of our Lord 30, or thereabout, but that the antitype of the feast was the thing of importance, then, in reply, it may be said that God rendered it necessary for them, in order to locate that antitype according to the Karaite view, to count the Sabbath which followed the crucifixion as the Sabbath of emotion, a thing which certainly will be very difficult of explanation by those who can speak as becomingly of the providence of God as did the gentleman in the article which is passing under review.

Finally, we repeat, therefore, that, if indeed there were a legal Pentecost this side of the death of our Lord, and if the Karaite system for locating it were the right one, then the seventh day which followed the death of Christ was distinguished by three very significant facts. 1. It was honored by the women (and therefore by the disciples) by their resting upon it. 2. Luke, in speaking of it thirty years subsequent to its occurrence, mentions it as the Sabbath, “according to the commandment.” 3. God made it necessary that the whole Jewish nation should keep the Pentecostal feast fifty days after the crucifixion of the Lord; and, in doing so, that they should count the seventh day of the week as still continuing to be the Sabbath.

In passing to the last branch of the subject, which will be treated in this article, we invite the reader to note the following facts, as we shall have occasion to employ them hereafter: 1. That the writer proceeds with his reasoning upon the hypothesis that the months at the time of the crucifixion were Jewish months, commencing with the new moon. 2. That the days were Jewish days, commencing and ending with the setting of the sun. These points we have previously urged, and are happy to see that they are conceded as being correct.

In conclusion, we turn our attention to the remaining feature of the communication in the Statesman, i. e., that portion of the article which relates to the real matter in dispute, namely—granting, for the sake of argument, that the first day of the week was the one on which the Pentecost fell in the year under consideration—whether that fact necessarily affected the character of that day so as to mark it out as one which God had chosen as peculiarly his own. For, be it remembered, that—though the whole argument which has been made respecting the identity of those two days should be conceded—we should then simply be prepared to decide whether the facts agreed upon would prove what is claimed, or not.

We ask, therefore, the candid attention of all to the use which has been made of the elaborate argument which we have been carefully considering, point by point. We would naturally have expected—if the gentleman felt that he had proved what he desired to, namely, that the Pentecost fell upon the first day of the week—that the real sinews of a masterly logic would have been discovered in an effort to show that it followed of necessity that it must therefore have been holy time. But has he done this? Or, in other words, if he has, in what manner has he brought it about? Has it been by fair logical deduction? We believe that there are very few who will insist that he has attempted such a deduction, with any measure of success, at the very point where it should have been expected most.

What he has said in the connection is very pretty. Yes, pretty is the word which precisely expresses it. How handsomely he alludes to the analogy between the natural harvest and the in-gathering of souls. But who does not know that such analogies are cheap things, and that one gifted with a prolific fancy can multiply them indefinitely? What was expected, and what we had a right to demand, was something which partook of the nature of certainty. How great was our disappointment at learning that the writer did not even pretend to have any authority from the Lord, so far as written statements are concerned. The whole thing he thought was fairly deducible from the coincidence of days, since nothing ever merely “happens” to occur in the providence of God.

What has been gained, then? Manifestly, simply the point that God had some object in view in having the Pentecost fall on the first day of the week in the year of our Lord 30, or thereabout. The next question to be decided is, What was that object? Right here is where we need help. God could have given it to us, had he seen fit so to do. He has not done so, therefore it is safe to conclude that it was not important that we should know what his purpose was.

But if any gentleman can be found who is wise above what is written, and who is able to decide with unerring certainty as to the motives of God at all times, and under all circumstances, we should like to propound a few questions to him. First, what did God mean when, in his providence, he allowed the Pentecost to fall upon Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday? It is said that God had a purpose in it; but can any one tell us what that purpose was? When he has answered this, then we have a list of similar interrogatories, to the solution of which his wisdom will be invited. In the meantime, we shall adopt the suggestions of men in regard to plans of Deity with great caution, for, if it should fall out in the day of Judgment that we had followed their fallacious inferences, to the disregard of a positive, written law of God, we know not what defense could be made for our course of conduct, since we had been previously informed that “his judgments are unsearchable,” “and his ways past finding out.”

Now let us look at the proposition concerning the outpouring of the Spirit. It is agreed on all hands that the manifestation occurred as written. It is inferred by the writer in question that it was done with reference especially to the honoring as sacred of the day of the resurrection. Here, again, is the assumption of knowledge which has never been imparted by divine authority. God has never said that he meant any such thing. Not only so, but it cannot even be fairly inferred that such was his purpose. First. Because he does not so much as mention, in the record, the first day of the week by name, an omission which can never be explained satisfactorily by those who insist that the events which occurred on the day of Pentecost transpired with especial reference to the honoring above all others, on the part of Jehovah, of the first day of the week. Secondly. Because, were we to judge at all in the matter, as he passed over six first-days, waiting for the arrival of the Pentecost, we must conclude that there was something in connection with that feast which induced him to act when he did, and as he did. Thirdly. Because the Pentecost furnished an opportunity for the display of the power of the ascended Christ before thousands of Jews and proselytes from all parts of the habitable globe, more advantageously than could be done at any other time; thus rendering it unnecessary that any other reason should be sought in explanation of its selection from among the other days of the year for the great outpouring of the Spirit. Fourthly. Because, in apostolic times, it was not an uncommon thing for the Holy Ghost to fall upon men on all days of the week; thus proving that God is not restricted in the outpouring of his Spirit to holy times and places, and that it is not safe to conclude that any display of his power in this direction was made at any one time because of a special regard for the particular hours on which it took place.

In conclusion, as the fabric of Sunday sanctity, in so far as it is based upon the transactions of the day of Pentecost, is seen to rest, purely upon the opinions of men, and since those who observe the day are divided in sentiment as to whether the Pentecost did indeed really fall upon it at all, we close this article, as we did the last, by stating that we have a positive commandment which is admitted to be binding, and which, as given in the Bible, says that the “seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work.” Also, that our advice to those who are weary with threading the interminable labyrinth of conjecture and hypothesis is, Place your feet upon the rock of the written word; there, and there only, you are safe. Should any one seek to lure you from this position by the assertion that the law upon which you have planted yourself has been amended, it will be safe to follow them only when they are able to tell you when and where the commandment, as given in Exodus, was changed, and exactly how it reads since the change has occurred.